Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk gives now the richest person on the planet.
Speaker 1: More than half the satellites in space are owned and
Speaker 1: controlled by one man.
Speaker 2: Starting his own artificial intelligence company.
Speaker 3: Well, he's a legitimate, super genius, legitimate, he says.
Speaker 4: He's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will
Speaker 4: be different.
Speaker 1: He'll vote Republican.
Speaker 4: There is a reason the US government is so reliant
Speaker 4: on him.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing enough.
Speaker 5: Anything he does, he's fascinating the people.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Max Chapkin, and as promise, we're backquus
Speaker 2: second time this week with a very special episode. We
Speaker 2: talk all the time on this podcast about the ways
Speaker 2: that Elon Musk runs his companies differently from what you
Speaker 2: might think of as a normal business. It's not just
Speaker 2: that he works crazy hours. It's not just that he
Speaker 2: makes outrageous demands on his employees or carries his toddler
Speaker 2: around like a good luck charm. It's also reflected in
Speaker 2: the actual setup of these companies, the way that people
Speaker 2: who work for Elon relate to one another. What it
Speaker 2: is is everybody reports to Elon. Ultimately, he is the
Speaker 2: sun and everybody around him revolves around him. And you know,
Speaker 2: this has all kinds of implications for all of his companies,
Speaker 2: none of which are normal. And happily Bloomberg just published
Speaker 2: an infographic that kind of explains all of this. It's
Speaker 2: a beautiful piece of reporting and visualization that lays out
Speaker 2: the weird relationships that surround the thing that we have
Speaker 2: been calling Elon Inc. The universe of Elon Musk's companies.
Speaker 2: And you know, happily for us, two of the reporters
Speaker 2: who put this together, the two lead reporters to put
Speaker 2: this together, are regulars on this very podcast. Dana Hall,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Elon Musk correspondent, is joining us to discuss it. Hello,
Speaker 2: Dana hey Hey and Kurt Wagner are social media reporter
Speaker 2: and regular on this show. Kurt, Welcome to Elon Inc.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't miss it. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And because this is a very special episode, we have
Speaker 2: a very special guest, Katie at Topolus, who covers tech
Speaker 2: and culture for business insiders. Here. Katie welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I like to
Speaker 1: think of myself as the cat turd two of threats.
Speaker 2: So Dana, let's start with you just tell us about
Speaker 2: what this graphic is trying to accomplish. And for people
Speaker 2: who haven't looked at it, you really should pause a
Speaker 2: podcast and look at it, because it's an amazing sort
Speaker 2: of picture, amazing visualization. It's constructed around a solar system.
Speaker 2: Why a solar system, Dana.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So the idea for this was, like, you know,
Speaker 6: people always asking how can Elon Musk run six companies simultaneously?
Speaker 6: Who else works for him? Like, is there a way
Speaker 6: that we could do like a visual representation of the
Speaker 6: org chart at all of his companies? And I think
Speaker 6: instead of thinking of it as like a linear org
Speaker 6: chart like the people who run X or X dot
Speaker 6: AI or SpaceX or Tesla, you really do have to
Speaker 6: think of it as a solar system, with Elon as
Speaker 6: like the very bright burning sun, and then this constellation
Speaker 6: of companies around him that are kind of circling him.
Speaker 6: And then around the companies you've got space junk, you've
Speaker 6: got satellites, you've got meteors, you've got certain people that
Speaker 6: kind of like bop around between the planets, and so
Speaker 6: that was kind of our visual framework, and I think
Speaker 6: it worked out really well. Anyone who's covered Elon for
Speaker 6: a long period of time knows that there are certain
Speaker 6: characters who just emerge over and over and over again.
Speaker 6: And while some of these names might be familiar to listeners,
Speaker 6: others are not, and you should really get to know
Speaker 6: who they are.
Speaker 2: Kurt, how did you you report through this? It's not
Speaker 2: like you can just look this stuff up on the internet,
Speaker 2: not like a normal company, Like how does anyone How
Speaker 2: does a reporter or even like someone who works for
Speaker 2: Elon musk figure out like who matters at a given
Speaker 2: company or within this universe.
Speaker 7: It's a challenge because, as you point out, they don't
Speaker 7: just simply say here's the executive team on a lot
Speaker 7: of these websites, certainly not with X, which is what
Speaker 7: I cover most closely. So I mean it really comes
Speaker 7: down to like shoe leather reporting, right, like trying to
Speaker 7: talk to people who are inside these companies, trying to
Speaker 7: figure out, hey, you know, when a finance decision is
Speaker 7: being made, like.
Speaker 4: Where does that go to?
Speaker 7: Who's sort of the final you know, approver of that
Speaker 7: or also just like following Elon's posts. Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 7: he'll either post a photo or video and you'll see
Speaker 7: people like lingering in the background and be like, oh wow,
Speaker 7: I didn't realize that that person was like involved in
Speaker 7: that thing or company, right, And so it's really just
Speaker 7: good old fashioned reporting. And I think the challenge is
Speaker 7: people move around often as we get through this cushion.
Speaker 7: You'll like Tesla executives who are now over at X
Speaker 7: or SpaceX, folks who are now at Boring Company or
Speaker 7: whatever it may be. And so just sort of keeping
Speaker 7: up to speed with like the who's there at that
Speaker 7: moment can be really tough. But generally we have a
Speaker 7: pretty good idea of you know, as Dana mentioned, who's
Speaker 7: orbiting Elon at any given time.
Speaker 2: Did you two have this like in your head already
Speaker 2: before you worked on this project, and was it a
Speaker 2: solar system or a different metaphor?
Speaker 6: I can speak for covering Tesla. I've always kept an
Speaker 6: ORG chart because it changes so quickly. And you know what,
Speaker 6: I think it's wild about Tesla. If you look at
Speaker 6: their website, there's nothing about people. It's all about the products.
Speaker 6: It's all about the cars or the robot or the
Speaker 6: promise of autonomy or you know, the megapax, like there
Speaker 6: is nothing about people on that website at all. And
Speaker 6: Tesla has you know, over one hundred and twenty thousand
Speaker 6: employees globally and they just have three named executive officers.
Speaker 6: So just figuring out the delta like okay, like besides
Speaker 6: the three named people on securities filings? Who else is
Speaker 6: actually like running the show?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: Is just this constant challenge. And you know, I think
Speaker 6: any reporter who covers the company always kind of has
Speaker 6: the ORG chart in mind. A lot of it is
Speaker 6: like asking our sources that are still at the company,
Speaker 6: like has the ORG chart change? Like what are you seeing?
Speaker 6: Like I heard this executive left? Are they gone? Are
Speaker 6: they back? Like are they on a leave of absence?
Speaker 6: Like it's it's always very very fluid, and I think that, yeah,
Speaker 6: like a solar system speaks to that.
Speaker 2: These names, like I'm guessing you don't you're not covering
Speaker 2: elon mus day to day, so you don't know them all,
Speaker 2: but I'm guessing many of them are familiar to you because,
Speaker 2: like Kurt kind of hinted at this, a lot of
Speaker 2: this stuff is like playing out on social media, Like
Speaker 2: some of these relationships we know about because they're tweeting
Speaker 2: at one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You can see it play out.
Speaker 5: And there's also a little bit of an element of
Speaker 5: like some of these figures have sort of moved from
Speaker 5: one phase of his life or one company to another.
Speaker 5: They sort of are intertwined. It's not just he has
Speaker 5: a bunch of companies and these are the people that
Speaker 5: work at them. Like there's sort of these satellite floaters
Speaker 5: coming in. It's almost like sort of keeping track of
Speaker 5: who's dating who on vander Pumper roles.
Speaker 2: Well, I was just going to ask you, like, does
Speaker 2: his sort of universe of influence look like a celebrities,
Speaker 2: you know, universe of influence or does it look different
Speaker 2: or just kind of curious how you think about the
Speaker 2: Elon community compared to other similar communities of influence or whatever.
Speaker 5: So I think kind of the best real window into
Speaker 5: this that we ever had was that moment during the
Speaker 5: chancery court lawsuit when he was trying to get out
Speaker 5: of buying Twitter, where all of a sudden all his
Speaker 5: text messages were revealed and you got to kind of
Speaker 5: see how he interacts with these other people that he
Speaker 5: either works with or has a friendship with or a
Speaker 5: quasi business relationship with, and how much like they suck
Speaker 5: up to him, and like there's such a weird power
Speaker 5: imbalance and dynamic. It's not exactly like a boss. It's
Speaker 5: not exactly like a friend. There's a really weird like
Speaker 5: sycophantic thing going on, and that kind of feels like,
Speaker 5: you know what you might imagine from like Entourage or
Speaker 5: something where like someone has these kind of yes men
Speaker 5: and these hangers on.
Speaker 2: That list of text messages. As Kurt also knows, it's
Speaker 2: like the Rosetta Stone of like, you know, if you
Speaker 2: want to understand Elon, that that it has, it contains
Speaker 2: like everything you need to know. I think, Kurt, I'm
Speaker 2: curious if you ever get questions from like Twitter employees
Speaker 2: asking like how to get in touch with various people
Speaker 2: in Elon's orbit, Like do people who work for him
Speaker 2: understand this empire?
Speaker 7: I don't think so, certainly, not off the top of
Speaker 7: their heads. I think like at a certain level of
Speaker 7: closeness to Elon, you know you probably obviously like the
Speaker 7: higher up the food chain you are, the more exposure
Speaker 7: you have to this kind of thing. But I think
Speaker 7: like the everyday rank and file sort of employees. Certainly
Speaker 7: at X, I don't think they're necessarily aware of the
Speaker 7: you know, broad orbit here. And part of that is because,
Speaker 7: like I can tell you, it was a little bit
Speaker 7: hard to put together on our end, right, Like it
Speaker 7: required like I said, like real reporting, real phone calls,
Speaker 7: real going out and asking people is certainly with the
Speaker 7: X side. I remember talking to folks like all right, well,
Speaker 7: like who's in charge of product? And they were sort
Speaker 7: of like, well, it's not like entire early clear, but
Speaker 7: we think it's this person. But like sometimes decisions are
Speaker 7: made over here. And so my point being is that
Speaker 7: it's not a very transparent system, and I think some
Speaker 7: of that is by design. I think some of that
Speaker 7: is just what happens when you have six different companies
Speaker 7: plus all of the extra you know, entourage that Elon
Speaker 7: comes with on any given day. It's just like, this
Speaker 7: is not a normal thing. And even other billionaires, like
Speaker 7: I was thinking, okay, Mark Zuckerberg is another person I
Speaker 7: covered very closely obviously as a huge you know, group
Speaker 7: of advisors, people who are close to him, Like if
Speaker 7: we were to do this with him, it would be
Speaker 7: much easier, in part because he's.
Speaker 4: Just running one company. He's running one.
Speaker 7: Business, like the six businesses thing is really what makes this,
Speaker 7: I think, such a unique scenario and also makes it
Speaker 7: hard to kind of understand the org chart from the
Speaker 7: ground floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just jumping on that. Are there legal or ethical
Speaker 2: questions raised by this? The weirdness here? I mean the
Speaker 2: fact that you potentially have, say, like a Tesla's a
Speaker 2: public company, you potentially have a Tesla employer being dragged
Speaker 2: off into some other part of Elon's empire, or being
Speaker 2: asked to work on a maybe even a personal project
Speaker 2: for him or something like that. Is that something that
Speaker 2: creates pitfalls? Legal pitfalls, ethical pitfalls, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6: Oh, oh sure, I mean it's a big part of
Speaker 6: the whole like fight over Musk's twenty eighteen compensation package, right,
Speaker 6: Like you have shareholders and you know, smaller investors, a
Speaker 6: lot of pension funds, being like, this is a part
Speaker 6: time CEO, he has never paid full attention to our company,
Speaker 6: and if anything, like he's just doing more and more
Speaker 6: crazy things and starting newer and newer companies and like
Speaker 6: borrowing Peter to pay Paul and like using Tesla resources
Speaker 6: to help prop up his other companies. I mean, now
Speaker 6: Tesla is advertising on X and you know, I think
Speaker 6: the thing to remember is that Tesla is the only
Speaker 6: public company out of the six. The other five are
Speaker 6: all privately held, and so Tesla has to test to
Speaker 6: disclose and its proxy all the ways in which these
Speaker 6: companies relate, like they share the corporate jet, like they
Speaker 6: share security, and so just the whole fact that that
Speaker 6: Tesla resources are used for other parts of the empire
Speaker 6: is a big concern. The question is, like, leney whatever,
Speaker 6: do anything about it? So far, the board certainly hasn't.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's move on the Elon universe. As we're explaining,
Speaker 2: it's a very complex cosmos, very hard for somebody who
Speaker 2: isn't studying this closely to understand, which and you know,
Speaker 2: that's a big problem because Elon is an important guy
Speaker 2: with a lot of money. So it makes sense of this.
Speaker 2: To get some more insight into this world, we're going
Speaker 2: to use one of the great tools of American journalism,
Speaker 2: the senior Superlative List. Now, for those of you who
Speaker 2: have not gone to an American high school, or have
Speaker 2: not watched a movie involving one, or just forgot what
Speaker 2: it's like. Basically at the end of the year, a
Speaker 2: committee of students puts together a yearbook, which is a
Speaker 2: book with two covers on either side that has all
Speaker 2: the names of the students and there's usually a several
Speaker 2: page full color section in which the students vote on
Speaker 2: who has the best hair, the best smile, and so on.
Speaker 2: And so for this panel, we're all gonna pretend to
Speaker 2: be editors of a high school yearbook and we're going
Speaker 2: to choose the superlatives for the members of the Elon Universe. Now,
Speaker 2: ahead of the show, just tell everyone, I asked everyone
Speaker 2: to send me their senior superlatives for the for the
Speaker 2: Elon Musk Universe. I've collected them here and I will
Speaker 2: moderate this discussion and try to rain everybody in. And
Speaker 2: before we do that, I need to ask, was anybody
Speaker 2: on this panel a senior superlative? And if so, which
Speaker 2: what was your superlative?
Speaker 5: Katie, I was, and I actually had two. I was
Speaker 5: class clown and most funfilled.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: I was just the editor of the yearbook, so I
Speaker 6: didn't get a superlative, but I put the yearbook together.
Speaker 2: Well, Dan, that's great. I mean, I'm so happy that
Speaker 2: you are here with us to keep me honest, Kurt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is sort of embarrassing, but you know why not.
Speaker 7: I got first place and third place in the Cutest
Speaker 7: Couple competition. I got first place with my actual girlfriend
Speaker 7: and I got third place with my best friend who
Speaker 7: I spent a lot of time hanging out with and
Speaker 7: we played football together, and apparently everyone thought we made
Speaker 7: a nice couple as well. So I was taking home
Speaker 7: multiple prizes, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so mine was, like, I think it was best
Speaker 2: all Around, which sounds like a really good category, but
Speaker 2: I actually think it's like a maybe bit of a
Speaker 2: burn and just because it's like you don't have anything
Speaker 2: to offer. So anyway, we're gonna start with kind of
Speaker 2: a classic, maybe not as classic as class clown, but
Speaker 2: a classic senior superltive category. Life of the Party Katie
Speaker 2: and Atopolas. Who is the life of the party in
Speaker 2: Elon Musk's universe.
Speaker 5: I so my vote is for his brother, Kimball Musk,
Speaker 5: and for a very straightforward reason, which is that he's
Speaker 5: a chef and like I'm sure he throws a great party,
Speaker 5: he can actually cook.
Speaker 2: I mean, I completely agree with that.
Speaker 5: He also seems like he's a guy who loves to party.
Speaker 2: He likes some party. Dana, Kurt, what do we make
Speaker 2: of Kimball? Do you how do you rate him on
Speaker 2: the life of the party scale? And who was your
Speaker 2: life at the party?
Speaker 4: I think that's a fun pick.
Speaker 7: I think my life of the party choice was Elon himself,
Speaker 7: which was, to be clear, the only time I picked
Speaker 7: Elon because I know we're mostly talking about his crew here.
Speaker 7: It seems like Elon, you know, is maybe dabbling in
Speaker 7: some extracurriculars.
Speaker 4: And I think.
Speaker 7: Kimball and Elon seem like, you know, two brothers who
Speaker 7: tend to maybe get in trouble together from time to time,
Speaker 7: and as far as long term consequences go, I'm not
Speaker 7: sure that's best. But for one night life of the party?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 2: Dan? I know this has falls under the normal description
Speaker 2: of your job, But who was your life of the party.
Speaker 6: Alex Spiro, Elon's lawyer, I mean, you know, like fast
Speaker 6: talking New Yorker. I don't know. Maybe I think he
Speaker 6: lives in Miami now, but he's at all these big trials,
Speaker 6: right he defended Elon during the Pedo Guy trial. He
Speaker 6: like is just front and center. He's always filing these
Speaker 6: crazy motions late on a Friday night, Like I get
Speaker 6: these pacer alerts and there's an alex Buro motion. And
Speaker 6: if you're a guy like Elon Musk and you're involved
Speaker 6: in a lot of litigation and you want to have
Speaker 6: a hardcore litigation team, you kind of need like a
Speaker 6: fun lawyer.
Speaker 2: These are all good choices. But this is grimes erasure. Everybody.
Speaker 2: I think we all know. Okay, we did it. Okay,
Speaker 2: let me compose myself. Everyone knows that Grimes is the
Speaker 2: life of the party as well. All right, best dressed, Dana.
Speaker 2: You had Franz von Holds, who sounds like a well
Speaker 2: dressed guy, but remind us like who he is, and
Speaker 2: you know kind of why you put him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, Franz is Tesla's chief designer. He lives in La.
Speaker 6: I actually saw him in person recently. I flew down
Speaker 6: to the Peterson Automotive Museum in la and it was
Speaker 6: just such a wild seed. It was like a Sunday morning.
Speaker 6: They were having this evy event at the museum on
Speaker 6: the roof and Franz rolled up in his cyber truck
Speaker 6: and emerged from the cyber truck wearing like a black
Speaker 6: T shirt and jeans and like some kind of like
Speaker 6: high end high top basketball shoes, and he had on
Speaker 6: like eighty eater sunglasses and he was just mobbed by
Speaker 6: people wanting his autograph. And it was kind of like
Speaker 6: a good reminder that, like, you know, Elon obviously has
Speaker 6: like tons of fans, but other people within his orbit
Speaker 6: are sort of celebrities in their own right, and Franz
Speaker 6: is definitely this way.
Speaker 2: So we had some other good good picks here. Katie
Speaker 2: had Linda Yakarino, who I want to save for our
Speaker 2: next category. Kurt had May Musk, Elon Musk's mom, who's
Speaker 2: a professional model, professionally well dressed. All right, this is
Speaker 2: like I think my favorite category, school spirit. Kurt, most
Speaker 2: school spirit? Who is your pick?
Speaker 7: I picked ex CEO Linda Yakarino as the most school spirit.
Speaker 7: I think you see, you know, her out there pumping
Speaker 7: up Elon, and I think you see her out there
Speaker 7: pumping up X seemingly totally behind him and everything that
Speaker 7: he says and tweets, like, she just seems like his
Speaker 7: big cheerleader, right and if and if the school, if
Speaker 7: we're at the School of Elon, I just get the
Speaker 7: sense that Linda's is really bought in. It's interesting because
Speaker 7: like he makes her job so hard, Like he tweets things,
Speaker 7: he says things that make you know, selling X's business
Speaker 7: so so so hard, and yet there she is rooting
Speaker 7: him on at every step, and so I had to
Speaker 7: give this to her.
Speaker 2: We have a little tabe of this. Let's let's let's
Speaker 2: give it a listen X.
Speaker 8: We need to keep our minds open that it's developing
Speaker 8: into this globebal town square that is fueled by free
Speaker 8: expression where the public gathers in real time.
Speaker 2: You know, Linda, she's leading the fencing team pep rally,
Speaker 2: She's there cheering on the math team. She is all
Speaker 2: about X, and like, I have to think that's like
Speaker 2: a self preservation tactic. But it does make me wonder,
Speaker 2: like if this is a guide to like how you
Speaker 2: if you like report up to Elon Musk. I guess
Speaker 2: this is what you have to do.
Speaker 6: I think that the key to surviving at Musk's companies,
Speaker 6: if you're up high is you either have incredibly deft
Speaker 6: emotional intelligence and you know how to manage him with
Speaker 6: like the right level of like synco fancy and like
Speaker 6: obedience or you like somehow dodge him and you stay
Speaker 6: out of his line of fire, which is not always easy.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think I had originally thought maybe someone else,
Speaker 5: but I'm completely swayed by Kurt here. I'm voting Linda too.
Speaker 5: And I think that like what really embodies the schools
Speaker 5: the sort of the person who's like, these are the
Speaker 5: best days of our lives, like remember this, like so exciting,
Speaker 5: like you have to sign my yearbook, Like that's the
Speaker 5: school streat. I think that there was this moment when
Speaker 5: she sort of first took over.
Speaker 1: At X of like did she know what she was
Speaker 1: getting into?
Speaker 5: Did she take this because she thought it was just
Speaker 5: gonna be a fun job and now it's a nightmare?
Speaker 1: Like does she regret this?
Speaker 5: And there were sort of reports that she was getting
Speaker 5: text and phone calls from people she had worked with
Speaker 5: back at NBC being like get out now before you
Speaker 5: like ruin your reputation.
Speaker 1: And then there were sort of more reporting that came out.
Speaker 5: It's like, no, she really is just like a true believer,
Speaker 5: like she absolutely believes it. She's in like full you know,
Speaker 5: full cent, she's she's in.
Speaker 2: These are the best years of our lives. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: class clown Katie on top list class clown of her
Speaker 2: of her senior class, who is a class clown of
Speaker 2: Elon's senior class.
Speaker 1: So I vote Grimes and hear me out.
Speaker 5: She is one of the few people in his orbit
Speaker 5: who like she's not a business person, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: she does have some business interests or whatnot, but like
Speaker 5: she does have the freedom to kind of say.
Speaker 1: Really wild weird.
Speaker 5: Stuff, and I get the sense that she secretly like
Speaker 5: does have a good sense of humor. Like she also
Speaker 5: is the voice of a children's AI stuffed animal toy.
Speaker 2: Called Groco Groc.
Speaker 1: Also, okay, I guess I own a Grock.
Speaker 2: She couldn't bring it next time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, my kids love Groc.
Speaker 5: But I've I've spent a lot of time with Grok,
Speaker 5: and I feel like I feel like her spirit in
Speaker 5: that is humorous to me in a way that I
Speaker 5: don't necessarily find some of his other business associates to
Speaker 5: be humorous. And unfortunately I know that Elon himself I
Speaker 5: think would love to be the glass clown.
Speaker 2: But sorry, buddy, what is it about Elon's humor?
Speaker 5: It's it's just sweaty, right, Like he misses the mark
Speaker 5: it's like he thinks he's so funny, but it's kind
Speaker 5: of just like warmed overifunny dot com.
Speaker 1: He steals memes.
Speaker 5: Is is a bude in the throat of a lot
Speaker 5: of people that they just cancel, Like it's just annoying
Speaker 5: that he does that and it's not funny, like and
Speaker 5: it's kind of rude.
Speaker 9: Dan.
Speaker 2: I mean, you and I of course have talked many
Speaker 2: times about about Elon's humor, and have you noticed any
Speaker 2: changes in the human like he's been. He's more on Twitter? Now,
Speaker 2: what for you sticks out about Elon's humor.
Speaker 6: I mean others have meant to have said this before,
Speaker 6: but he's really like a comedian kind of trying out
Speaker 6: his bits. And like if you've listened to him long enough,
Speaker 6: which you know, for better or worse, those of us
Speaker 6: on this podcast do listen to him quite a lot,
Speaker 6: Like he just recycles a lot of the same things,
Speaker 6: like over and over again. It's almost like he's so
Speaker 6: sleep deprived and he's running on empty so much that
Speaker 6: like he just he forgets what he's saying is what
Speaker 6: he said before.
Speaker 7: I've sort of described his humor as like middle school
Speaker 7: humor before, right, like it feels like the kind of
Speaker 7: thing that you know, there's like a lot of kind
Speaker 7: of weird sex jokes and then a lot of weird
Speaker 7: you know, like jokes about females and their bodies and things,
Speaker 7: and it's like it feels like the kind of thing
Speaker 7: that you know, a fourteen year old boy would do
Speaker 7: to try and like impress his friends type of thing,
Speaker 7: and it feels like he doesn't really deviate a ton
Speaker 7: from that.
Speaker 2: All Right, So I know Kurt is the cutest couple
Speaker 2: in this room, but I'm gonna ask Katie for her
Speaker 2: cutest couple because it was a good one. Katie, cutest
Speaker 2: couple in elon Land.
Speaker 5: It's got to be David Sachs and Jason Kalkanas. They
Speaker 5: do the podcast together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are the co hosts of the.
Speaker 5: All In Yeah, And you know, and I like watching them.
Speaker 5: They sometimes will disagree and have little spats with each
Speaker 5: other on Twitter, which I find charming. I mean, I
Speaker 5: find I guess I should say I find not that
Speaker 5: much about them charming, but together they're clearly they've got a.
Speaker 1: Thing going on. They've got chemistry. You can't deny that.
Speaker 2: Well, and they are both gonna come up individually later on,
Speaker 2: So let's just keep moving. But but I totally agree
Speaker 2: they have a wonderful banter. I was a little disappointed,
Speaker 2: have to say, Kurt had Elon and may you know
Speaker 2: Elon and his mom, which to me feels like a
Speaker 2: cop out choice a little bit.
Speaker 4: Well, they showed up at the met gala together. Is
Speaker 4: that not cute? Or what? To you know? Bring your
Speaker 4: mom to the met gala.
Speaker 2: Next category we have is most likely to succeed Dana Hall.
Speaker 2: Who is your most likely to succeed in Elon Lands?
Speaker 6: Well, this was an easy one for me. Gwen shotwell,
Speaker 6: I mean, come on, the woman has been the number
Speaker 6: two at SpaceX for all these years. She clearly knows
Speaker 6: how to manage Elon. She's a survivor, she's incredibly respected.
Speaker 6: She handles all the contracts with NASA and a Pentagon.
Speaker 6: If Elon is like the bad dad or the scary
Speaker 6: dad at the office, Gwen is like the good mom
Speaker 6: and she clearly has his trust. And I mean, Max,
Speaker 6: you and I got to interview her at the SpaceX
Speaker 6: headquarters in La you know, several years ago, and you know,
Speaker 6: for all of the talk about how Elon, there's like
Speaker 6: sort of turnover in the executive ranks at Elon's companies.
Speaker 6: I mean, Gwen, there's no turnover there. I mean she
Speaker 6: has been at SpaceX since the beginning. She was like
Speaker 6: the seventh employee, and she's gonna she's you know, I
Speaker 6: think she's she's she's clearly the most successful.
Speaker 2: You know. This came up in the teacher's peck category.
Speaker 2: I do think a large portion of most likely to
Speaker 2: succeed in Elon Land is being willing to essentially defend
Speaker 2: anything he does. Actually, we have some madio right here
Speaker 2: of Gwen Shotwell talking to Forbes women.
Speaker 10: I also have learned that he's rarely wrong, even if
Speaker 10: that's super irritating and it feels not right when you
Speaker 10: first hear what he wants to go achieve, and so
Speaker 10: if it doesn't sound like what you think we should
Speaker 10: be doing, I always stop and think, Okay, we've been
Speaker 10: through that before, think hard about what he's saying, what
Speaker 10: he's trying to achieve, and figure out how to.
Speaker 2: Make it work.
Speaker 1: It's very inspirational music in the background.
Speaker 5: I love that it feels like I'm like watching like
Speaker 5: a nineties infomercial.
Speaker 2: All right, now, this this category so most likely to succeed.
Speaker 2: That's always kind of like a fifty to fifty year.
Speaker 2: You know, in some ways that's a compliment. In some ways,
Speaker 2: you know, we're all on the yearbook committee sort of
Speaker 2: making fun of you. The next few categories sort of
Speaker 2: get into, i'd say less flattering categories. Teacher's pet, Katie,
Speaker 2: who is your teacher's pet?
Speaker 1: I mean it's got to be Jason, right.
Speaker 2: That is the correct Let's listen for ourselves. Here's Jason
Speaker 2: Calcanis talking with Lex Friedman.
Speaker 9: I have never seen an entrepreneur suffer more than him,
Speaker 9: and you know he's been public about that, like you
Speaker 9: do not want to be me. He has suffered for
Speaker 9: those companies.
Speaker 2: He has suffered to get them where they are.
Speaker 9: It has not been easy.
Speaker 5: You see that he has this close friendship that has
Speaker 5: gone on for a long time. But really, really where
Speaker 5: those tweets that were revealed in the Delaware courts during
Speaker 5: the X takeover, where he is he's saying wild stuff.
Speaker 2: I would jump on a ground for you yonde.
Speaker 1: Did he.
Speaker 5: Wasn't he like you have my sword, like really dramatic,
Speaker 5: like sycophantic things like and of course also like my
Speaker 5: dream would be to be Twitter CEO, like also an ask,
Speaker 5: but like it was just really like he's laying it
Speaker 5: on Fish.
Speaker 2: Oh kay, I can't help it. I have to play
Speaker 2: another clip from the Freedman interview. This one's kind of
Speaker 2: a personal interest, you know, off mic, A lot of
Speaker 2: us will talk about who are our favorite journalists, and
Speaker 2: right here we have Jason Calcanis talking about his favorite journalists.
Speaker 9: People were kind of a gas that he was asking
Speaker 9: that such good questions and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 9: Elon's the best journalist on the planet. And it was
Speaker 9: like anybody who knows Elon knows he has great questions.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been I used to.
Speaker 1: Oh, wow, Katie.
Speaker 2: You're only you're only criticizing Jason Calcanus because you're worried
Speaker 2: coming through that clip.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: Okay. Now for most likely to be President, we have
Speaker 2: Kurt Had, Jason's co host as your pick, David Sacks.
Speaker 2: Why Kurt, I did?
Speaker 7: He just seemed of everyone in the university, seems the
Speaker 7: most interested in politics and like having an influence over
Speaker 7: geopolitical stuff. I don't know, it's like he seems to
Speaker 7: want to be involved in all this stuff. He talks
Speaker 7: about Russian and Ukraine all the time. He talks about
Speaker 7: like other geopolitical issues on the All In pod, but
Speaker 7: also on his Twitter account. And I was just like,
Speaker 7: I was looking through the list of all these people,
Speaker 7: and he seems the most in tune with what's going
Speaker 7: on at least, like he likes to talk about what's
Speaker 7: going on in the world. And I thought, if anyone
Speaker 7: wants to be president, it's got to be this guy.
Speaker 5: He's he's hosting a big fundraiser for Trump. He and
Speaker 5: his wife, that's right, hosting, So he's you know, he's
Speaker 5: he is very interested in politics.
Speaker 2: With another All In co host we've not mentioned Schamath Pollopatia.
Speaker 2: I think it's like a five hundred thousand dollars a
Speaker 2: plate dinner.
Speaker 1: You know, that might be a little above my budget.
Speaker 6: To be clear, Elon Musk has not endorsed anyone, and
Speaker 6: he claims that he is not giving money to any candidates,
Speaker 6: but he has left open the possibility of donating money
Speaker 6: via a pack and he obviously, I mean he's he
Speaker 6: is not a big fan of.
Speaker 2: President Joe Biden.
Speaker 6: I mean he's made that abundantly clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also possibility he saunters into this fundraiser in
Speaker 2: early June with May Muskintoe or somebody else. Okay, last
Speaker 2: of these categories. And I will say that Katie and
Speaker 2: I were the only ones brave enough to answer this
Speaker 2: question for biggest flirt, Katie, you had Alex Spiro, who
Speaker 2: was was Dana's life of the party. Actually, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'd like Dana to defend that. Why why do you
Speaker 2: think why would Alex Spiro be the biggest flirt at
Speaker 2: Elon Land?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 6: Well, because if you're doing a jury trial, you've got
Speaker 6: to be able to basically flirt with the jury to win, right,
Speaker 6: So I could see that, you know, like you've got
Speaker 6: to have a sort of amount of like confidence in
Speaker 6: bravado at a real rapport with you know, with everyday
Speaker 6: people to kind of sway them to your side. I could.
Speaker 2: I could definitely see that. Is that enough for you?
Speaker 1: I think so?
Speaker 5: And I mean he's also someone who he's unlike some
Speaker 5: of the people who work for Elon Musk, where Elon
Speaker 5: Musk is their sole boss, Like he has other clients.
Speaker 5: He's bitping and bopping around with lots of people. You know,
Speaker 5: Elon is just one of many of his clients, you know.
Speaker 2: All right. So for our final segment, we are I've
Speaker 2: asked everyone to come up with their own category that
Speaker 2: wasn't on this list and and a nominee. So Katie,
Speaker 2: why don't you go first? What was your imaginary category?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 5: So mine was one that we did have in my
Speaker 5: high school, which was most likely to stay past twelfth grade.
Speaker 1: Which again is a little bit of an insult, I think.
Speaker 2: I'd say a little bit.
Speaker 5: It's I think it's a mix of you either love
Speaker 5: the school so much that like kind of like school spirit,
Speaker 5: or like, buddy, I don't think you're gonna make.
Speaker 1: It, but you can graduate.
Speaker 5: But I had Franz von Holtzausen, and the reason is
Speaker 5: because he has been there a long time and I
Speaker 5: can sort of see him being a lifer and holding on.
Speaker 2: Like Matthew McConaughey and you know whatever. Moving Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: all right, Kurt? What was your category?
Speaker 7: I had most likely to move your family to the
Speaker 7: surface of Mars, And for that I had Steve Davis,
Speaker 7: the president of the Boring Company, because you may recall,
Speaker 7: shortly after Elon took over X, Steve moved his family
Speaker 7: into X's office and literally like lived in the conference
Speaker 7: room with his partner and their I believe newborn child
Speaker 7: while they were transitioning from Twitter to X.
Speaker 4: And I just.
Speaker 7: Thought, if anybody's willing to move their family into a
Speaker 7: you know, office cubicle, then they're probably willing to follow
Speaker 7: Elon to the.
Speaker 4: Surface of Mars. So Steve Davis wins that one.
Speaker 2: Steve Davis is like a really interesting and sort of
Speaker 2: important person in Elon Land who's been really close to him.
Speaker 2: Is another probably another candidate. Frankly for Stay Pass twelfth grade,
Speaker 2: worked with him very closely at SpaceX was involved a
Speaker 2: Twitter boring company. I actually had him as my class
Speaker 2: clown for because there was a time I think he
Speaker 2: closed it, but he for a while he owned a
Speaker 2: frozen yogurt shop in Washington, d C. Called Mister Yogato
Speaker 2: for some reason, like in addition to all this other
Speaker 2: stuff he was doing. So he's he's he's an interesting person.
Speaker 2: My category was, which I think we may have had
Speaker 2: in my yearbook, was worst case of senioritis. This is
Speaker 2: someone who is not not putting in all the effort,
Speaker 2: maybe not involved enough. And I picked Peter Teel because
Speaker 2: we think of him as being a you know, really
Speaker 2: important power broker. But if you look at this graphic,
Speaker 2: he's just kind of like a little piece of space
Speaker 2: garbage off to the far right corner. And and it's
Speaker 2: it's a little bit surprising because of course Elon Musk
Speaker 2: has really like moved to Peter Thiel's worldview. He's sort
Speaker 2: of in almost every way they've they've like come together,
Speaker 2: and he's like managed to somehow maybe lose some of
Speaker 2: the luster. Maybe Elon's taken some of his thunder, Dana,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you the last category. What was it?
Speaker 6: Well, of course my category was most dramatic.
Speaker 2: All right, let's listen to some tape that that helps
Speaker 2: explain or maybe predicts the answer.
Speaker 3: Look, I know I sometimes say or post strange things,
Speaker 3: but that's just how my brain works. Do anyone have offended?
Speaker 3: I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars and
Speaker 3: I'm sending people to Mars in our rocket ship. Did
Speaker 3: you think I was also going to be a chill
Speaker 3: normal dude.
Speaker 2: Dana, couldn't have any been any other way.
Speaker 6: It really couldn't have been. But I actually thought you
Speaker 6: were gonna play the clip from when he spoke a
Speaker 6: due book and told Bob Iger and all the advertised
Speaker 6: who were boycotting acts to go f themselves. I mean,
Speaker 6: this is not a subtle person. And you know, this
Speaker 6: is a guy who like fire. You know, he's laid
Speaker 6: off or fired like thousands of people at Tesla over
Speaker 6: the last month. In one case, he basically disbanded an
Speaker 6: entire team and then started quietly hiring some people back.
Speaker 6: He doesn't do anything subtle, and even his like emails
Speaker 6: to his employees are like you've got to be totally
Speaker 6: hardcore work all weekend, Like there's nothing, I mean everything,
Speaker 6: Everything is always dramatic with him.
Speaker 2: Can you when do you think this like Elon as
Speaker 2: this like figure of cultural fascination, Like when did it
Speaker 2: be in for like when did it start to really
Speaker 2: feel like in your world like that he was somebody
Speaker 2: who mattered just like beyond the companies and like like
Speaker 2: what caused it?
Speaker 1: So that's a good question.
Speaker 5: I feel like for a while I sort of was
Speaker 5: as someone who's not primarily interested in like cars or
Speaker 5: space in I mean, I guess I'm interested in them existing,
Speaker 5: but you know, in my coverage or whatnot, I wasn't
Speaker 5: that you know, excited by him.
Speaker 1: But then I want to say, actually, like we just
Speaker 1: played a clip.
Speaker 5: From when he was on Saturday Night Live, and I
Speaker 5: feel like that sort of was right at a moment
Speaker 5: where like something was turning with him where he was
Speaker 5: going from like a guy who is a famous businessman
Speaker 5: to like someone who kind of exists in pop culture
Speaker 5: in a much much bigger and fascinating and weird way.
Speaker 5: And I also think that the moment where he showed
Speaker 5: up on the met gala with Grimes was that was
Speaker 5: like that was sort of the damn breaking of like
Speaker 5: this is just fun, Like this is now you are
Speaker 5: a pop culture figure.
Speaker 7: Once he you know, decided once he became the richest
Speaker 7: person in the world, and once she bought a website
Speaker 7: that is all about influencing culture and shape being the
Speaker 7: news and the facts.
Speaker 4: That people get.
Speaker 7: Like to me that obviously he was a well known,
Speaker 7: of course, and very prominent person before that, but I
Speaker 7: feel like to me that was more of the tipping
Speaker 7: point was like suddenly he wasn't just this famous tech guy.
Speaker 7: He was now the famous tech guy who owns the
Speaker 7: distribution channel for what has created like a lot of
Speaker 7: really important Internet moments right, which was Twitter. So to me,
Speaker 7: like that purchase was what sort of you know, it's
Speaker 7: not been two years or whatever. I think that purchase
Speaker 7: is sort of what pushed him into this, Like, Okay,
Speaker 7: we're not just looking at him as the cool iron
Speaker 7: man guy. We're now looking at him in a very
Speaker 7: different light because of the power that he has over speech.
Speaker 9: In the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think that peak Elon may have been when he
Speaker 6: hosted Saturday Night Live. And then now it's like he's
Speaker 6: kind of on the downward slope in that when once
Speaker 6: you become so powerful, then you have a target on
Speaker 6: your back. And like the backlash is very real. People
Speaker 6: used to hold him in very high esteem. There's now
Speaker 6: like a real Elon backlash. You're seeing like bumper stickers
Speaker 6: on Tesla's in the Bay Area that say things like
Speaker 6: I bought my car before I knew Elon was crazy.
Speaker 1: You have people.
Speaker 6: Actively saying that they're voting no at the Tesla shareholder meeting.
Speaker 6: I don't know if he inspires the same kind of like,
Speaker 6: you know, feeling that he used to when he was
Speaker 6: just like this guy trying to solve the problem of
Speaker 6: climate change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean that is I think ultimately like
Speaker 2: why this graphic, why this discussion matters, Because as funny
Speaker 2: as it is to like, you know, talk about who
Speaker 2: is the biggest flirt in elon Land, it's also these
Speaker 2: are the people that are causing this incredibly wealthy, incredibly
Speaker 2: powerful person to do the things that he does. I mean,
Speaker 2: they could even I mean, you know, David Sax could
Speaker 2: be president.
Speaker 10: Y' all.
Speaker 2: So that's why we're doing this, and I'm sure we
Speaker 2: will revisit these topics again and again in the weeks
Speaker 2: to come. Yeah, thank you, Katie not Topolas, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for having me. Kurt Dana, thanks for being
Speaker 2: on the podcast.
Speaker 4: As always, absolutely thank you.
Speaker 6: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2: This episode is produced by Stacey Wong, Naomi Shavan and
Speaker 2: Rayhan Are Monsieur senior editors. The idea for this very
Speaker 2: show also came from Rayhn Blake Maple's Handles Engineering, and
Speaker 2: we get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott and Antonia Mufarich.
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Speaker 2: written and performed by Takai Yasusawa and Alex Segiera. Brendan
Speaker 2: Francis Newnham is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is
Speaker 2: the head of Bloomberg Podcasts. I'm Max Chafkin. If you
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